Johan is co-founder and managing partner with Peak Capital. Before he was founder of various TMT companies such as data driven advertising company Adatus, social marketing business ReturnSocial (exit to Uberconnected in 2015), MailMedia and Yourleads (exit to OMG in 2009). Johan is active as a mentor for start ups with accelerator programs Rockstart and Smartcamp and part-time teacher Entrepreneurship at the VU.

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Amsterdam, June 15, 2016 – The Dutch venture capital funds Peak Capital and Vortex Capital Partners invest six hundred thousand euro in the fast growing Amsterdam-based company Media Distillery. The new CEO of Media Distillery, Roland Sars, also contributed to the investment. The innovative company develops unique technology that analyses audio and video ultra-fast. Among other use cases, Media Distillery can search within radio and television-programs in real-time.

“This investment allows us to develop our platform further and to grow internationally”, says Sars. Media Distillery developed technology that completely automatically analyses and searches within video and audio. The technology can be used to search within radio and television content, in real-time. “Our service also alerts you when a certain brand, person or any other topic appears”, Roland Sars, CEO of Media Distillery, continues.

Companies such as Lexis Nexis, Buzzcapture, Coosto, Meltwater, Clipit and Media Info Groep already use the technology for servicing their own customers, such as T-Mobile, McDonald’s, DSM and Specsavers. Also major Dutch radio channel BNR Newsradio uses the service to allow search in their own media content and archives. Media Distillery analyzed over hundred thousand programs in the past two years.

“Peak Capital and Vortex Capital Partners have exhaustive experience in rapidly growing markets like ours”, says Sars about the investment. “An exceptional cooperation.” Serial entrepreneur Sars sold his previous company BackupAgent recently to a leading American company in the same sector. Now he starts a new entrepreneurial adventure with Media Distillery.

“Searching and analyzing video and audio is still in its infancy”, says Johan van Mil of Peak Capital. “Media Distillery is leading in the market with fantastic and proven technology.” Evert Jan de Groot of Vortex Capital Partners adds: “It is impressive to see what the team has accomplished in such a short period of time. We therefore see great potential for Media Distillery, a company that can grow into a leading international player.”

Founders Joost de Wit and Geert Vos are delighted about this step: “Both Peak Capital and Vortex Capital Partners have an excellent track record of successful participations and we believe that their added value in terms of marketing, sales and strategy will be enormous”.

About Media Distillery
Media Distillery develops technology that analyzes audio and video content (such as radio and televion) in real-time. State-of-the-art data mining techniques such as speech, logo and face recognition to filter all relevant information. Media Distillery delivers highly accurate search results by combining different techniques.
Since the founding of Media Distillery in 2014, Media Distillery had become the dominant player in the market. The Amsterdam-based company is on the eve of a European expansion. More information: www.mediadistillery.tv.

About Vortex Capital Partners
Vortex Capital Partners is a Dutch venture- and buyout capital firm with a focus on companies active in internet, software and technology enabled services. The team of Vortex Capital Partners is built around successful internet and software entrepreneurs and M&A professionals, aiming to support the entrepreneurs they invest in to accelerate the expansion of their businesses. More information: www.vortexcp.com.

Johan is co-founder and managing partner with Peak Capital. Before he was founder of various TMT companies such as data driven advertising company Adatus, social marketing business ReturnSocial (exit to Uberconnected in 2015), MailMedia and Yourleads (exit to OMG in 2009). Johan is active as a mentor for start ups with accelerator programs Rockstart and Smartcamp and part-time teacher Entrepreneurship at the VU.